Once-in-a-decade vintage for Champagne’s vineyards

THE wine growing regions of Burgundy and Champagne are heading for an “exceptional” year in terms of quantity and quality boosted by the summer heatwave in eastern France, experts say.

Such is the quality that champagne producers say they are heading for the first “vintage year” for bubbly in a decade. Bordeaux and southern French regions, meanwhile, had a tougher time with mildew.

Maxime Toubart, the president of the champagne vintners union, SGV, called the year “exceptional in quantity and quality” as grapes benefited from a wet winter that recharged water tables which the vines would tap throughout the hot, dry summer.

“I didn’t have a single grape go rotten this year. Lots of producers told me they’d never seen a year like this,” said Mr Toubart. “We have high hopes this year will be a vintage year in champagne,” he told AFP.

Non-vintage wines make up the vast majority of production in the region and are a blend of the latest vintage plus several older reserve wines. Nonvintage wines require a minimum of 18 months ageing before release.

In years where there is an outstanding harvest, producers “declare” the vintage and make wines using only grapes from that particular year. A minimum of 36 months maturation is required for these wines. As a result, such bottles are “30 to 50 per cent more expensive,” said Mr Toubart.

Non-vintage champagne accounts for 80 per cent of sales worldwide.

Régis Camus, cellar manager at the Piper-heidsieck champagne house, said that 2018 would “likely” be a vintage year. The last one for the house was in 2008.

The abundant harvest will also allow wine growers and houses to “rebuild their reserve (wines put aside in good years), which will enable them to face the possible vagaries of the climate in the future”, said the champagne wine board, CICV. Hail and frost in previous years meant some champagne producers’ reserves had reached perilously low levels.

Over in Burgundy, the picture looked equally rosy.

“This vintage has fully lived up to expectations, both in terms of quality and quantity,” said the Burgundy wine board, BIVB. “The wines are showing good balance. The reds are undergoing extraction of deep rich colours, while the minerality and crispness whites is very promising. “

BIVB president François Labet said: “We are in the footsteps of preceding vintages. Undeniably, climate change has been beneficial for us as an eastern region. Pinot (noir) and chardonnay love these conditions.”

Bordeaux is also expecting a good year in some areas due to the same hot weather, but yields are down due to mildew, a fungus, which attacked the grapes after heavy spring rains, which affected 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of vineyards. of the